


Lonely Memory

by lizard_socks



Series: Rootstock [4]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Elsewhere Fic, Far Future, Gen, Sharing a Body, Symbionts, Tok'ra (Stargate)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25025362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizard_socks/pseuds/lizard_socks
Summary: A Goa'uld-species parasite is split from its host and put into a robotic body, but afterwards, both host and parasite think they're the "real" person - until they meet each other.
Series: Rootstock [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1778194
Kudos: 3





	Lonely Memory

Sheleth walked slowly through the underground tunnels on the moon of Arkan. The people who had invited her here - the Tok'ra - had been reluctant to share any details about their hideout, but as hard as it was to believe, all available evidence pointed to these caves being no more than a few weeks old. Arkan was an inhabited planet, with a handful of Iroshan colonies near the poles; if there had been alien activity on the moon for any longer than a month or so, surely someone on the planet would have known about it.

The message from the Tok'ra had said that they had something important to discuss. Their representatives wouldn't even tell her why _she_ was the one contacted, but she suspected - given the level of secrecy involved - that it had something to do with one of her direct subordinates. After all, she wasn't a particularly notable captain, and her ship, the _Rootstock_ , was an ordinary transport vessel under private ownership; its only point of distinction was the number of non-Iroshan species on its crew.

"Sheleth of Kashet." A man approached her, most likely one of the Tok'ra; he seemed to be human like the others. "I am Trovan. It _is_ true you have no family name, correct?"

"In the city I come from, it's typical for children to be given only one name. But I appreciate your attention to protocol."

"We deal with many cultures in both our escapes from and pursuits of the Goa'uld. I've found it important to be as polite as possible."

"Who are the Goa'uld?" Sheleth asked.

"An intelligent, parasitic race whose members control many systems." Trovan lowered his voice slightly. "They enter their hosts' bodies and take control of them. There also possess technology similar to ours, but in much greater number. There is no easy way to fight them."

"Have they taken any of your people?"

"Not in a long while. Each of us has our own symbiote with whom we share our bodies."

"I suppose that would keep them out."

"They are of the same species," Trovan said. "But they are not Goa'uld."

"I imagine you'd appreciate some help," said Sheleth. "There's not much of a reason for someone from that part space to come out this far."

Trovan nodded. "We are searching for a Goa'uld who was once a great adversary of ours. Until recently, he had not been seen in hundreds of years, since the withdrawal of the System Lords from the Earth region."

"And you've seen him around here?"

"Yes. We have reason to believe he is controlling a member of your crew."  


* * *

Sheleth leaned over a clear fence in a flat, snowy field, wearing a coat and hat that covered most of her green skin. Another member of her reptilian species, the Kasheeta, stood nearby: red-skinned, but of a similar build. He was dressed in much the same fashion, but also carried an old-fasioned shoulder-mounted Kasheeta rifle. Sitting on a rock next to him was one of Sheleth's crew.

"All right, Leaf," the red Kasheetan said. "Now let's see you shapeshift into something flat."

"Anything in particular?"

"Doesn't matter too much. Can you keep your depth under a centimeter?"

"Shouldn't be a problem." Leaf, the grey-furred crewman, laid down on the snow and slowly flattened himself out.

The Kasheetan nodded. "All right, that should do it. Everything looks good."

"Is that it?" Leaf popped back to normal as he sat up. "You're not going to mail me somewhere?"

"What good would that do?" Sheleth asked. "Good chance the postal service would use our ship to deliver you anyway."

As Leaf walked out the doors of the holographic simulation room, Sheleth walked towards her companion. "I think we can rule him out."

"I'd have to agree," the other Kasheetan said. "I don't think any foreign organism could survive long in his body."

"Which raises some interesting questions about his gut bacteria," Sheleth added. "Or lack thereof."

"I'm gonna say it again. If you want medical advice, call up a medical simulation, not the Non-Humanoid Biathlon Training Program."

"You're the only one I've got on the ship who knows anything about Earth. Which means you're the only one who takes the Goa'uld seriously  _and_ isn't vulnerable to them." Sheleth glanced at the door. "I think we've elimated all the other suspects. Pyrite's an invertebrate; these things can't control a body without a spine. Ashley's human, so all of Stargate Command's old protective measures would work on her; knowing the Earth government, they'd have had her vaccinated the moment she arrived in the 24th century."

"And you?"

"The Tok'ra won't come out and say it - accusation of parasitic control is a very serious charge in Iroshan libel law - but they have someone in mind. If it was me, they would have gone to my boss."

"And if it was one of the temps, they'd go to  _their_ boss?"

"Exactly. They've got their eye on one of my direct reports. And now we know who."

* * *

TWO WEEKS LATER

* * *

It was almost sunset. Ashley looked out onto the horizon. The small stadium was probably quieter than it had ever been - it was completely empty save for her. She looked up at the bar and sighed.

"Adjust simulation parameters. Lower bar by three centimeters. And, uh, set simulated date-time to 15 minutes after sunrise, but keep temperature at 25 degrees."

The sun moved back across the sky, landing in the east. Ashley tried to focus her attention on the horizontal bar in front of her. Even when she was younger and more athletic, she had never been able to keep up with the boys in her class. But it had never been about the competition for her. Athletics was the first thing she had ever committed herself to, the first time she really invested in something for her own sake. And now that she was older, living a new life far away from home, it was the only thing left to remind her of her childhood.

Ashley heard the simulation room door open behind her.

"I thought you might be here," said Misam.

"You're back! Are you all right?"

"I hope so. It's not a great feeling to find out there's a body-controlling parasite on your spine, but you at least hope you'll know when it's gone."  


"How long do you think it was in there?"  


"No idea. It never showed up on any of my medical scans. The doctor on my old ship noticed there was something weird there, but they ran a thought-wave test, and it didn't show anything besides my own brain. I think everyone assumed it was some sort of benign growth."  


"They never did a biopsy?"  


"That ship wasn't run by humans. They weren't as worried about the Goa'uld as you all." Misam glanced briefly at his tail. "Makes me nervous. If my own planet's doctors couldn't find it, how do we know it's not still hiding in there?"  


"Misam, you've seen it alive in the containment cylinder in Pyrite's lab. They can shed their husks, but they can't clone themselves. You know it's not inside you anymore."

"This simulation is of is your high school in Paramaribo, isn't it?" Misam walked over to Ashley and looked up at the bars. "I always though you'd left that life behind you. You left your planet and changed your name. Why come back?"

"I don't know how to explain it, it's... it's like it's somehow separate from everything else in my life. Something I couldn't bring with me. Maybe there's a part of myself that's always going to be stuck in the past." Ashley reached up and took down the bar. "I was an only child, so a lot of my memories are of being on my own out here on the track. You grew up on a starship with four brothers and sisters, didn't you? You must have a lot of memories."

"I guess I don't remember much from that time of my life."

"Really? I thought your species' siblings were famously close."

"Not us. I don't know why, but I never really felt like I knew them all that well. Do you think the parasite could have been inside me way back then?"

"I suppose it's possible," Ashley asked. "Does it feel any different now that it's gone?"

"Not really," Misam said. "I guess I expected to notice the difference. If I couldn't tell there was something wrong with me before, than how can I be sure of myself now?"

"You're really nervous, aren't you? Have you been like this the whole time, alone in your apartment on Iroshar?"

Misam let out a heavy sigh. "I can't stop thinking about it. I used to doodle to pass the time, to distract myself. Now I can't even do that anymore."

"I know that feeling. Most days, I could do this jump with my eyes closed. But something just seems off for some reason. I think it's just been too long since I did it. Maybe you should try drawing something - anything - just to prove to yourself you still can."

* * *

Leaf put on his goggles and peered into the cylinder.

"You really don't think it can control either of us?"

"Your nervous system isn't biological in nature, remember?" Pyrite said. "It's tied to the magic of your home planet."

"So a part of me will always be there."

"Yes, in a very literal sense."

"What about you?"

"There's only one person who can control me," Pyrite said, "and she's not here. Seems ironic, don't you think? We're the only non-biological lifeforms on this ship, and we're in charge of keeping this thing alive."

Leaf checked the life sign monitors. "Everything looks the same so far. It's alive, unconscious, and I _think_ it's in good health? Honestly, I don't really know what to look for. I've seen naquadah in long-range transport tests before, but I've never seen it inside a living being."

"Well, according to that guy on Arkan, this thing's thousands of years older than any of us. Maybe _it_ knows."

"He also said it was an evil, manipulative being of great power."

"Good point. Still seems a bit strange that they're having me keep it locked up like this, though. It's not really Fer's MO."

* * *

"You're really gonna wake the parasite up?" asked Sheleth. "Sure, he _looks_ like a weird worm with teeth, but he's also one of the most reprehensible beings in history."

"I mean, what are our other options?" Fer Nessellar, Sheleth's boss, sat across the table. Her antennae were angled forward over the black portfolio in front of her. "We can't kill it. Not without a trial in court. And you can't put someone on trial if you leave them unconscious. Besides, the Tok'ra and the humans both want information that only a being this old could possibly have, and once the Iroshan councils find out about this, they're all gonna want a piece of it too."

"Easy for them to say. They're not the ones who have to be in the same room. And I suppose you'll ask them to pay for it?"

"Didn't have to. They already offered. Never would have asked otherwise; it'd be tacky."

Sheleth walked over to the window.

"It doesn't have to be on your ship," Fer added.

"It is the best place, isn't it? He can't control Pyrite, who's light-based, or Leaf, who's god-knows-what. And Ashley's already been vaccinated against this sort of thing."

"So she's immune as well?"

"It's standard procedure for humans when they first go off-planet. You know all the data we have on them comes from a four-hundred-year old military project on Earth, right?"

"You mean Lieutenant General O'Neill was part of the _U.S._ Air Force? I assumed the data would be a little more contemporary."

"Well, nobody in the Earth sector has seen the Goa'uld in centuries," Sheleth said. "But once the humans were able to invent their own spacecraft, they made sure to take precautions. I think everyone assumed they were still out there, and it looks like they were right."

* * *

"So what do we know about this guy?" Ashley asked. She kept her phaser pointed at the robotic body laying on the floor, in which the parasite had been implanted. " _Is it_ even a guy?"

"The Tok'ra who contacted us referred to it as a 'he'," said Pyrite. "But they didn't really tell us anything else."

"Not even a name?"

"Maybe you should give it one," Leaf suggested.

Ashley shrugged. "There's too many options. I never made it past the 'A' section myself."

Pyrite walked over to the computer console, sealed off from the rest of the room by muted blue walls and a heavy metal door. Originally designed for debugging the simulation room, she had hijacked it to control the robot's boot firmware instead. "Ready to initiate robot with snake inside it," she said.

"I feel like it's more of a worm," said Leaf. "Snakes are cuter."

"Go ahead," Ashley said.

Pyrite pressed the button, and the robot's eyes lit up.

* * *

Misam rolled over onto his stomach. Whatever that light was on the ceiling, it seemed much too bright. He didn't remember it having been there before.

"What's your name?" he heard Pyrite ask. Why was she asking? She was usually at a computer - why wouldn't she just enter his name as usual? It was impossible to tell what she was feeling from her tone of voice. Maybe she was setting up some sort of multiplayer video game or something.

"Do you want me to just make one up?" asked Misam.

"What names have you used before?"

"I usually just type 'Misam,' I guess." He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Nice try." Ashley was pointing something at him. He still couldn't quite see, though. Maybe the surgery had messed up the ocular implants he had gotten as a kid?

"Is that name taken or something?"

"I'd say so."

"Well, then you can just call me whatever you want, I suppose." Misam reached up to scratch his ears-

They weren't there.

He looked down at his hands: made of raw metal, in the shape of a glove, with no fingers other than the thumb. His tail was missing. His arms and legs were longer than usual. And his eyes didn't blink. They couldn't.

"You had to turn me into a robot? Why didn't you lead with that?"

"You've been in other bodies before, haven't you?" asked Ashley.

Misam stood up. "Not unless you count my mom's! You didn't even give me hair! I look like an overgrown newborn!"

"More like a snake, I'd say."

"Really? Well, that's not as bad, I _guess_. Snakes are cute."

"Why does everyone think snakes- ugh. Just come with me. You have hundreds of years of vaguely defined crimes to answer for, apparently. No, they won't tell me what they are. Yes, I'm kind of mad about it, just-"

"Wait. Did you mean a snake with weird teeth on, like, all sides of its mouth?"

"...I thought that was clear from the context."

"You mean... _I'm_ the parasite?" Misam ran over to the computer console. "No, this... I put this computer thing here two months ago. It does, you know, the thing with the pointy arrow..."

He slowly slumped down onto the floor.

"Oh, God, how could I not know? And what have I done to that poor guy?"

* * *

"Well," said Ashley, "he doesn't look like he's gonna put up a fight."

"Honestly, Ashley, I'm starting to wonder if that's really who we thought it was in there." Leaf stood against the back wall, but he kept an eye on the robot through a window in the otherwise closed-off computer console nook. "This is not normal Goa'uld behavior."

"It can't actually _be_ Misam. Even if a consciousness could be transferred like that, this parasite clearly didn't even know what a computer keyboard was."

"But Misam _did_ install that," Pyrite noted. "His hands didn't work on the touchscreens, remember? They were designed for Iroshan species."

"The parasite was probably in him when that happened," Ashley said.

"Are you sure they can keep the hosts' memories? Even if they weren't controlling the host at the time?"

"I think we have to assume they can. There's nothing from the old Air Force files that really rules it out."

"This is weird, though, isn't it?" asked Leaf. "I mean, what's the parasite trying to do here? Make us feel sorry for it? And the Tok'ra barely told us anything, either. All we know is that it's not Misam."

The metal door flew open, and Misam came running in.

"It's totally me!!"

" _Misam?_ " Ashley ran over and grabbed him with both hands. "What are you doing here? It's not safe for you to be around these things!"

"It's not gonna take me over. If it does, just shoot me and take it back out." Misam quickly opened the window and threw a ballpoint pen in the robot's general direction. "Hey, robot!" he shouted. "Draw a picture of Angie!"

"Where?" the robot asked. "On the wall?"

"We'll clean it later!"

The robot stood up, grabbed the pen, and made a quick sketch: a round face, with two big circular eyes, a slight smile, and an angle on the bottom for a snout.

"See?" Misam, with one hand on Ashley's shoulder, pointed to the drawing. "Look at those circles. That's someone who's drawn the same thing a million times."

"Well, you draw like that, don't you?" Ashley said. "It probably picked up your art style."

"But that's the problem, Ashley! _I can't draw anymore!_ I've been trying for days, but every time I just can't figure out the right proportions, or where to put the mouth. It's _on the side!_ How does that even make sense?" Misam took a deep breath. "I don't know who I am, but I'm not Sharona Misam. That thing out there is. And the drawing proves it."

* * *

Ashley slumped down into a beanbag chair in the common area.

"Are you sure you don't need to get some sleep?" Pyrite asked. "There's really no danger to the ship anymore. Nessellar can bring some of the floaters back from the flagship."

"I'll be fine," Ashley said. "You two have been awake just as long as I have."

"I'm an immortal monster, and she's a chunk of metal," said Leaf. "You aren't."

"That's the thing. This is about organic biology, or psychology, or whatever, and I need to figure out what would cause the parasite to lose all its memories." Ashley reached for a stack of paper. "The Goa'uld are supposed to remember everything. They even inherit the memories of their parents."

Leaf took a stapled set of papers from the stack. "This copy's in French?"

"Yep. Mine's Dutch, and Pyrite's got the originals, because apparently she can read anything."

"I had plenty of time to learn." Pyrite looked over Leaf's shoulder. "So your planet immunizes people to these parasites before they go off-world? Even though the Goa'uld haven't been in your part of space for centuries?"

"When space travel started, the governments declassified a lot of their old files," Ashley said. "These scared the crap out of everybody."

"Say, why doesn't Misam's planet immunize its people against the Goa'uld?" Leaf asked. "They're part of the same federation that Earth is."

"His planet hasn't had the same experiences, I guess. It's like the opposite of Iroshar. Tons of trees and everyone loves each other and has like five children. What I don't get is why taking the parasite out would give us two Misams, and not one Misam and some other guy. There's nothing like it in these reports."

"I don't know about his species," Pyrite said, "but I've seen humans get their memory storage and retrieval shunted to external systems. If this thing's been in him since he was a kid, maybe it's possible that certain types of knowledge and memory were stored inside the symbiote, rather than his own brain."

"But the symbiote should still have its own consciousness, right?" asked Leaf. "Unless there was some sort of memory wipe. Is there anything in the SGC files about that sort of thing?"

Ashley put the papers down. "You know, our planet didn't have that tech back then, and I don't think the Goa'uld did either. It's hard to know what would happen."

* * *

"This is absurd," the robot said. "How could you possibly think _I'm_ the real one?"

"Doesn't it explain everything that's weird about me? The interest in science and engineering, the 1.5 meter height, the lack of any sort of close relationship with my siblings?"

"Then where did the body come from? And you're the one who's got an actual brain. That's clearly where all the science stuff is coming from, 'cause you're the one who can still do it."

"But _you're_ the one who can draw," the alien countered. "You've been doing that since you were, what, 15 years old? So that part of us has been around longer, which means that it's you who's real."

"15? Are you sure?"

"Yeah, because I've seen my old report cards. I really struggled with art class when I was 12 or 13, and then by the time I was 15 I was doodling in the sides of my notebook."

"So it started when we were 14."

"I guess. I mean, I don't remember much from that year."

"Me neither. Actually... I don't remember _anything_ from that year. And not much from before that, either."

"Neither do I."

"You never noticed?"

"I assumed all those memories had gone to you."

"Were they there before we got split up?" the robot asked.

"I mean... it's been so long since I've thought about it," the alien said. "Do you think something could have happened when we were 14? Like some sort of memory wipe?"

"I don't remember anything like that."

"It's a memory wipe. That's kind of the point."

"Well," said the robot, "that _would_ explain why I'm not an evil alien megalomaniac, wouldn't it?"

"You're right. If the power-hungry nature of the Goa'uld is propagated through the generations via memory and knowledge transfer... losing that knowledge could have made you a completely different person."

"A completely _empty_ person, even. And sharing a body with you... I started to take on your personality, your identity."

"Which means whoever the Tok'ra are looking for died sixteen years ago on a Federation starship."

"Do you think..." The robot started pacing around the room. "Do you think that this could maybe be the reason we didn't have a relationship with our siblings?"

"Aren't those supposed to develop early on?"

"Maybe they _did_ develop. Maybe we _were_ close, and we lost that when our memories got wiped."

"God, you're probably right." The alien leaned against the computer console. "Probably on purpose, too, or they would have tried to put them back. We'd at least know about it. No wonder I was so unmoored when I got to college."

"If you'd still had that attachment to your clan, you might never have gone to Earth at all."

"I'd never have met Ashley. And there's no way I'd end up out here in Iroshan space..."

"Are you all right?"

"I feel like you're the one who's got our emotional side. I mean, how's it feel to know you've lost practically your whole childhood without realizing it? Do you feel betrayed?"

"Honestly... not really. You know why they must have done it, right?"

The alien nodded. "Something traumatic must have happened to us. To _all_ of us, our siblings included."

* * *

"Well, I can tell you that's not an approach anyone on Earth would recommend," Ashley said. "I'm sure Pyrite is very familiar with the concept, though."

"You're not wrong," said Pyrite. "Even we've stopped doing it, though, once we realized we were more like you than we wanted to admit."

Misam sunk down into the beanbag chair. "If you're a parent, though... if your kids have gone through God-knows-what, and you can make them content and productive again? Even if that means losing something? You don't want to see your kids in pain like that."

"Well, watching the symbiote go back into your body wasn't exactly pretty, either," said Ashley.

"It was worse for you than it was for me, I'll say that much. It feels a lot better to be back in one piece again."

"Say," Leaf said, "it occurs to me that you're the only one of us whose parents are still alive. Are you going to ask them about what happened?"

"At this point, I'm just glad they're still around. At least then I can try to rebuild some of what I lost."

* * *

"You received my report?" Sheleth asked.

Trovan nodded.

"I expected you to accuse me of making it all up."

"This was not the expected scenario," Trovan said, "but it was not completely unanticipated. The technology to wipe memories did not exist in the Earth sector back when our fight with the Goa'uld was in that region of space."

"You knew, though, that Misam _had_ undergone the memory wipe?"

"We did."

"And you didn't tell us?"

"It was important that you took every possible precaution."

"You sound like one of Nessellar's security training videos. Trying to scare the crap out of me to make sure I do the right thing."

Trovan smiled. "We are familiar with such things. Trust me, the Tok'ra know the importance of unique passwords."

"One more thing." Sheleth looked around; nobody else was within earshot. Sheleth was pretty sure it wasn't a secret, but she didn't want to take any risks. "You said the Goa'uld had retreated from the galaxy. They must have been somewhere else. How did one get back here? Has someone out there gotten the Stargate network back online?"  


"We do not know. In fact, we were hoping to find out."  


"Well... I guess we'll just have to be careful."


End file.
